Industry Super Australia (ISA) has renewed its call for a rebalancing of superannuation tax concessions and warned the Government against pursuing short-term Budget savings.
Delivering a supplementary submission to the Government's Tax Review, the ISA urged measures specifically aimed at assisting both the young and lower income earners.
In doing so it, said the tax system needed to be recalibrated by "shifting billions in tax breaks from the top income earners to those on lower income rungs to help them achieve a better retirement and ease the call on the age pension".
ISA chief executive, David Whiteley, said the current tax review process represented a golden opportunity to set the system up for the future but warned it shouldn't be a quest for short term budget savings.
"There is the capacity to make the system worse unless changes are carefully thought through," he said. "In particular it is vital that tax concessions are rebalanced rather than booked for short term budget savings and recent changes to the age pension asset test are tempered so incentives are coherent."
Whiteley said the system had to deliver on community expectations of a better retirement — and if it did not, there would be inevitable pressure for the age pension to be lifted.
ISA's proposals contained in its supplementary submission to the tax review include:
The future of superannuation policy remains uncertain, with further reforms potentially on the horizon as the Albanese government seeks to curb the use of superannuation as a bequest vehicle.
Superannuation funds will have two options for charging fees for the advice provided by the new class of adviser.
The proposed reforms have been described as a key step towards delivering better products and retirement experiences for members, with many noting financial advice remains the “urgent missing piece” of the puzzle.
APRA’s latest data has revealed that superannuation funds spent $1.3 billion on advice fees, with the vast majority sent to external financial advisers.